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One Man's War

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One Man's War

By: Steven Savile
Narrated by: R.C. Bray
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There's no good way to prepare yourself to die....

Guerro runs a kill team. They're good. Better than good. Or they were, until they walked into an ambush that wiped his team out and left Guerro for dead.

All the evidence suggests they were betrayed, but by who, and why?

Determined to avenge his team and settle old scores, Guerro embarks upon a one-man war, knowing that whoever put the kill order out on his people is still out there, watching for him to show his face so they can end him.

A hard-biting SF thriller in the vein of Blade Runner, Altered Carbon, and Titanborn.

Narrated by the award-winning R.C. Bray (Galaxy's Edge, The Martian)

©2019 Steven Savile (P)2019 Aethon Audio Adventure Cyberpunk Military Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Technology
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After there final mission together goes wrong, Marco Guerro is out for revenge, but who was to blame!! Good book that moves at a nice pace, the only problem is the con seems to be far to complex for just revenge.

RC Bray does his usual good performance, keeps the story moving along nicely.

Revenge is sweet

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This book starts off great and carries on throughout the rest of the story. It melds a combination of action humour and tension effortlessly and RC Brays narration brings this brilliantly to life in his usual excellent style. It isn’t the longest book. It that doesn’t matter as you will be totally absorbed into the story and by the end want to listen to it again.

Totally recommend this for all fans of mil sci-fi

Excellent story

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A cracking read, wonderfully narrated. Just the right mix of action, tension and cheese. The near future world building is deftly handled to create a piece of sci-fi to appeal to fans of Bladerunner.

For fans of Bladerunner

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Listener received this title free

I really enjoyed One Man's War. It was actually nice to have a shorter book that I could listen to while waiting for the next release of one of my main series that I like. I didn't have to commit too much time to it.

I got involved in the characters, I cared what happened to them. The environments were well devised and described. It was fun! I'm not too sure about the Stealers Wheel references though!

RC was amazing as always and brought this to life in the usual way that he does.

Good story, excellent narration.

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Listener received this title free

From the start I should mention that I received my copy of this book for free but wasn't told to write a positive review or anything like that. This will be spoiler free except where indicated at the end.

Summary: if you know that you like thrillers, you will find in One Man's War a familiar and well-executed story. If you're the sort that turns their nose up at a simpler plot and set of characters, you're probably better off elsewhere.

One Man's War is a punchy sci-fi (more towards near-future cyberpunk than space opera) thriller that takes the reader on a whirlwind story with heavy heist themes. Clocking in at just 5 hours, it's a much shorter book than I would normally listen to, and that does incur certain costs, but overall I found the story enjoyable.

What the author does very well here is pacing - with the exception of one notable scene, the story doesn't feel off-pace at any point in the five hour journey; very fast but not blisteringly so, and importantly not so rapid that you lose track of what's going on while walking around or driving or whatever you do while listening to books.

So let's talk about the main concern with a short book: what is sacrificed in the name of brevity? Well the good news is that depending on your expectations and preferences, the answer might be nothing at all. If you're looking for a plot-driven exciting book then this delivers thoroughly.

The trouble is in the characters: the main character is a bit of a thriller default, a sarcastic tough guy with a relatable softer side who gets dragged begrudgingly into increasingly daring capers. If this book was a film he'd be played by the rock. Of the 7 main-ish characters, only one other has more than one dimension, despite some efforts to allude to depth. This isn't necessarily a criticism - the story is all about whether the protagonist will complete his mission, the cardboard cutouts around him just need to be set dressing.

The other thing you'd expect to suffer from such a short length is the plot. The author is clever to avoid trying to stuff a sweeping plot into few pages, instead narrowing the scope and focusing on telling it well. I would still argue that the plot was still simplified more than necessary, but that's getting into spoiler territory. Overall, I don't believe that the plot is weakened by its length and is solidly executed.



MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

While I enjoyed the journey of One Man's War, the destination left me disappointed. The whole time I was waiting for the thing that would go wrong, but nothing ever did. No twists, no turns, nothing. Just a straight shot from inciting event to the finish line. Considering how smart and wily the antagonist is supposed to be, I was expecting him to put up more of a fight than he did, or any fight at all really. There's something very satisfying about a good plan coming together, but I would have appreciated a hurdle or two along the way.

A last word on the characters: their lack of depth would have been less notable if the author didn't keep hanging a lantern on it. In the worst part of the book, the Venice "flashback" (in which the narrative voice doesn't change at all from the main text and sounds like someone reciting a novel rather than someone recalling events to someone who has the exact same shared experience), the book tries to cash in on an emotional investment we are supposed to have in the old team that simply didn't exist. The book starts with them dying, how can it expect to start caring about them half way through?

A Dash Through Dystopia

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